String Theory

by David Tong

These lecture notes provide a detailed introduction to the bosonic string and conformal field theory, aimed at "Part III" (i.e. masters level) students. The full set of lectures notes can be downloaded here and weigh in at around 200 pages. They are now also available on the arxiv. Individual sections can be downloaded below. Last updated February 2012.

Genres: Physics

216 pages, Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 2012

About the author

David Tong is a professor of theoretical physics at DAMTP in Cambridge, a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and joint recipient of the 2008 Adams Prize. He was a postdoc at the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics and an adjunct professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR).He is currently also a Simons Investigator. His main research interest is in Quantum Field Theory

Reviews

[Nazir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very pedagogically friendly notes on string theory. String theory, much like quantum field theory, has seemingly endless depths and resources to explore. Though much like the latter, David Tong’s lecture notes is the way to go for strings as well. The lecture has solid footing in the physics motivation for studying bosonic and open strings while introducing all the formalism in a way that doesn’t feel intimidating.

The pre-requisites are a solid grasp of QFT (particularly path integral methods) and GR. It helps to know some additional things such as some group theory, differential geometry and topology. Though the emphasis on these is quite light. The first 3 chapters spend some time motivating and introducing the classical and canonically quantized theory of relativistic strings. With chapter 3 being a really cool peak behind the curtain of other dynamical objects in string theory. Chapter 4 spends a considerable amount of time introducing 2-dimensional conformal field theory from scratch. This is a significant chunk of the lecture notes (40 pages) due to how much lore there is behind 2d CFTs. At first, some of the tiny details feel slightly arbitrary, but Tong brings it all together by reminding you why you’re learning this new corner of QFT in chapters 5 and 6. Chapter 7 is a satisfying chapter showing how the low energy limit of string theory seems to almost magically spit out Einstein gravity and gauge field theories. While chapter 8 teases some front end ideas such as compactifications and T duality.

I read these notes in a rather condensed timescale. Though despite my rushed pacing, I thoroughly enjoyed these notes and would strongly recommend them for a first pass through string theory. I find them far more pedagogical than the famous String Theory Volume 1 textbook by Polchinski. Though I think after having gone through this, I can understand Polchinski far better. A book that is very systematic is Basic Concepts of String Theory by Blumenhagen, Lüst, Theisen. It is the book I intend to use to explore certain details more thoroughly. All in all though, Tong did it again.